Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,29 Apr 2014,17 mins

Michael Lewis' "Flash Boys"

Business Daily

Available for over a year

High Frequency Trading: Michael Lewis explains what it is and why we are all losing out. His latest book, "Flash Boys", has stirred up the murky world of algorithmic trading on the world's financial markets. Mr Lewis tells presenter Evan Davis what "High Frequency Trading" is, and why he thinks that ordinary investors are losing out in Wall Street's race to adopt ever faster and smarter computers. We hear from Ronan Ryan, who helped set up a new financial exchange aimed at weeding out those deemed to gain an unfair speed advantage from using computers. Also in the programme, Naveena Kottoor reports from Algeria on a very different kind of trading - the black currency market that operates in a public square in open view of the local police.

Programme Website
More episodes